InsideTransit

Many of you have heard of snakes on a plane,  but have you heard of snakes on a bus? Our man on the street in Berlin, Mark, sent in the photos below of a bus that has a wrap promoting the zoo. We’ve seen tons of transit ad wraps here at InsideTransit – for both buses and trains – and this is the best looking wrap I’ve ever seen.

I don’t know about you but I would be a bit nervous if that bus showed up at my stop in the morning.

We’ve written about odd buses before including the Fucker Bus. Here in NYC there is a bus called the Duck which can float around in the water and then become an open-top bus. The Duck bus is for tourists coming to NYC.

Today our reporter in Berlin, Mark, has found us a new type of bus. It’s a bus that can transform into a boat and head into the water.

Check out the full story on Spiegel Online. The boat part of the bus is powered by two massive engines and the bus can carry 45 passengers across the river.

All I can say is that I want this water bus. You could easily live inside this bus and slap an Internet connection on the roof and go anywhere! I wonder how long a trip on this boat-bus would take from NYC to London. Place your bets in the comments.

This story was sent in by Mark, our German transit reporter. Apparently the passengers on the bus seen below didn’t want to wait in the ATM line to get their cash and make their deposits. Instead the bus driver decided to go above and beyond and just drive the bus directly into the bank. That’s what I call “door to door service”!

More photos are available on Der Tagesspiegel.

This might be the cutest thing you will see today – scratch that – this year! NewYorkSh*tty has a set of photos of a hamster on the number 4 subway. There are several very interesting points about these photos:

• the train is empty – I’ve never seen an empty 4 train
• the destination sign is blank – I guess this train just goes on forever!
• the hamster appears to be posing for some of the pics – he probably thinks the photos will be placed on Facebook

NewYorkSh*tty has an interview with the person behind the photoshoot and notes that the models come from usage in courts when cases involve trains or buses. The models look pretty damn awesome – I want!

Earlier this week, bricks and tiles fell from the ceiling of the 181th street subway station in NYC. Work has been ongoing 24 hours a day to get the line open again and I am hearing that the line should be open on Monday.  The MTA has been posting photos from the work site at 181st – I’ve posted a few of them below.

This is a perfect example of why the MTA should have a blog – to humanize the conversation of events like this ceiling collapse. Posting images on Twitter is meaningless for the majority of transit riders who would be interested in viewing the work progress. Give me a call MTA – let’s talk. Instead of a blog, we get silly television commercials telling us how Bloomberg wants to fix the MTA – how come now he wants to do it – why not any of the other years? Oh yea, it’s an election year

Here a work crane is on the tracks on the right and a meeting is being held on the right platform:

Here is a photo showing bricks from the ceiling being removed – probably to be saved:

The bus company we love to think of as first-class all the way (note sarcasm), Greyhound, is moving across the ocean to the UK. You can see an example of the buses that Greyhound will roll with below – it’s a pretty nice looking bus from the outside.

From the announcement:

• The first UK Greyhound coaches will run between London Victoria and Portsmouth and Southampton with services scheduled to launch on September 14.
• The Greyhound UK coaches will have leather seating, free wi-fi, power sockets, air-conditioning and complimentary newspapers.
• First says the Scania Irizar coaches will have up to 20% more legroom than rivals’ vehicles while traffic light displays on the coach dashboards will inform drivers how well they are driving their vehicle. (LOL – “attention passengers, the driver of this coach is going well past the speed limit”)
• All Greyhound UK coaches will be named after women from popular American songs such as Sweet Caroline, Barbara Ann, Jolene and Peggy Sue. (will there be a britney spears – probably not since it would be prone to crashes)

I thought it was us Americans that wanted to be like the Brits not the other way around. There will be an online marketing campaign when the buses roll out targeting the young Internet audience. I sure hope the drivers remember that in the UK they drive on the left.

As a side note, why do buses in Europe all have those huge ass mirrors – I’ve never seen them state-side but on my European trips, they are everywhere. They remind me of the sticks used in cricket.

There have been loads of people who have created alternative NYC subway maps over the years.  Kriston Lewis has put together one of the best looking and functional maps I’ve seen to-date. The lines are clearly noted, bus transfers are included on the main points, and it’s easier to follow than the current MTA subway map.

Click the graphic below to download the map – note that it’s a PDF file and is 80″x80″ in size.

Here at InsideTransit, we are always on the lookout for people wearing subway and transit-related clothing. This morning one of my friends sent me the image below. As you can see, it’s a woman wearing a NYC subway map as a dress!

It appears to be a map from the 70s. Even the straps on the dress have some subway writing on them (I can’t make out what it says).  The top of her dress is actually most of manhattan which is duplicated from the bottom left of the dress.

The dress is available at Nordstrom for $250! Just get some subway maps at a station and paste them together – then it will cost $0 (but don’t go out when it is raining!

Today’s photo comes from Sydney, Australia. Here we see a very crowded rush-hour train – interestingly people are holding on to the ceiling of the train car. It’s rare to see that here in the states – maybe less deodorant is used here. I think at least another dozen people could easily fit – that mean on the left is taking a lot of extra space.

Here’s what it looks like from the inside:

Here’s today’s transit photo of the day – the first one. I’ve decided to add this feature to InsideTransit as a way to honor those who take awesome transit photos – something I wish I could do!

This one comes from Lisbon, Portugal.